The present invention relates to railway car brake rigging comprising a single-cylinder, truck-mounted, brake assembly in which lightweight, truss-type brake beams are employed and, more particularly, to a handbrake adapted to such a brake rigging.
A brake rigging of the aforementioned type is disclosed in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 764,047, now U.S. Pat. No. 4,613,016, assigned to the assignee of the present application. In order to utilize the lightweight, truss-type brake beams, it is imperative that the rigging configuration be such that the braking forces are applied at the midpoint of the brake beams, since at this location the bending load on the beam compression member is transmitted to the beam tension member via a strut rod, in order to support the bending stresses on the beam. Thus, in adapting a handbrake to a brake rigging of the aforementioned typed, the handbrake mechanism must interact with the brake rigging such that the handbrake force is also applied at the beam midpoint.